Family Man

I'm a big fan of Andrew Peterson. One of my favorite songs of his is Family Man, not so much because I identify with the person singing, but rather because I wish that I did. Here is a video someone has produced to accompany the song. It maketh me weepy.



"Family Man" from Trevor Little on Vimeo.

From Bonnets to Earrings...

At 10:22 on July 27 of 1995, my first child was born. Months of worry and a lifetime of prayers had led to that moment. I recall vividly in the early hours of the following morning that I sat and gently rocked her, long after the nurses had left and Kadie had finally succumbed to the fatigue of the day and the long night. (I also recall the Texas Rangers snapping an eight game losing streak, but that's not important right now).

So I was the only one in the room, rocking my newborn when the pediatrician came in to give her a check up. He was in his early forties, not too much older than I am today. He paused for a moment as he saw me rock her and he smiled and said “Tomorrow she’s going to be all grown up.”

I considered strangling him on the spot.

But he’s now been proved right. As of yesterday evening, we now have a teenager in the house. May God have mercy on our souls.

Kadie took her to get her ears pierced this weekend. Scooter has been looking forward to that rite of passage for most of her thirteen years. When she would ask why she couldn’t get them pierced any earlier, I always would respond “Because you will have the rest of your life to be a grown up. You can be a little kid for awhile longer.”

After they returned from the mall, she came up to me in the living room, pulled her hair back to display her new earrings and said “How do I look Daddy?”

For just a moment when I looked at her, all I could see was:

"You look beautiful, honey, just like you always have."

A Wordle of Coffeespoons

Wordle is a method of graphically depicting the words from a text (in this case, a blog) and apportioning their size based on frequency of use. So the more often they are used, the larger the text.

Click here for a wordle of Coffeespoons.

Meeting the Candidate

After our series of interviews, the committee reached a consensus on one particular candidate. We decided early on that when we began the second series of interviews, we would focus on only one candidate at a time. Initially, four of us traveled across the state to hear him preach at a church that was half-way between us. When we saw him we were shocked. He’s thirty years old and barely looks that. His wife is even younger. My initial thought was “He’s way too young and the older folks in the church would never like him.” But we introduced ourselves and he made a favorable first impression.

The sermon went well. His style was quite different from our previous minister who often equated volume with passion. While his approach is more conversational, the message was still challenging. Particularly positive from our perspective was that he preached a sermon appropriate to the church. It is a church located in a neighborhood transitioning from predominately white to predominately African-American. But the church shows little evidence of changing to meet the needs of the new community. His sermon was direct and challenging. Surprisingly (to us) the sermon was not directed to a search committee, but it was pointed directly at the church.

Following the service, we took him and his wife (and three kids) out to lunch. It was an enjoyable meal and didn’t feel at all like an interview. We had a very nice conversation with them for over four hours (!?). He and his wife shared their testimonies and provided a compelling narrative covering how God has been working their lives.

After they left, we discussed the meeting and all four of us felt that we had been a part of something very special. We each had an identical first impression (he’s too young) and then our perceptions began to change throughout the service and the subsequent meal. Two of the four who went later shared that at this meal they were convinced that he was the man God was leading to our church. (Lacking such discernment myself, it would only be later that I would reach the same conclusion). But clearly we each felt a rising sense of excitement by the end of the meal.

As we turned our mini-van toward home, I got a call from another member of the committee who had traveled to a different church that morning. Before he could give me a summary of his visit I interrupted him and said “Jim, I’ve got someone the rest of the committee needs to meet…”

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A Review of Love as a Way of Life

I’m not sure that there is a greater marketing gimmick in the world than romantic love. Music, films, books, paintings, all depict love in various forms and glorify, if not deify, the concept of romantic love. As a consequence of this ongoing glorification, I’ve tended to view books on love with a certain amount of suspicion. And so it was when I was contacted to put together a blog review on Gary Chapman’s newest book, Love as a Way of Life: Seven Keys to Transforming Every Aspect of your Life (Waterbrook Press, 2008). I'm also notoriously skeptical of subtitles like this one.

I knew of Chapman’s The Five Love Languages, and he has written his first study of love since that famous work. Love as a Way of Life is his attempt to reframe the reader’s view of love from romantic concepts to realistic ones. He breaks down the concept of love into seven constituent parts, and provides a definition of each one.

Kindness: The joy of meeting someone else’s needs before your own simply for the sake of the relationship

Patience: Allowing someone to be imperfect

Forgiveness: Using honesty, compassion, and self awareness to reconcile with someone who hurt you

Courtesy: The act of treating everyone as a personal friend

Humility: a peacefulness of heart that allows you to stand aside in order to affirm the value of someone else

Generosity: giving your attention, time, abilities, money, and compassion freely to others

Honesty: a loving consistency in speech thought and action

In each chapter he defines that aspect of love. He usually relates a narrative from his counseling experience that illustrates how the individual was either practicing or not practicing that particular trait.

Take his definition of courtesy. It eschews the common concept of the word (saying Thank you and Yes Ma'am) and provides it with a much greater depth. It only takes a minute to see how our lives might be transformed by characteristic of love. How might your day be changed if you treated everyone you encountered as a personal friend? Would it affect the way you interact with the cashier at Wal-Mart? Would it affect the hostile student complaining about a grade? How would it affect the long-suffering secretary in the doctor’s office who is trying to work your sick child into an unscheduled appointment? Would it affect your response to your wife at the end of a busy week when you are both exhausted and the kids are fighting?

Chapman defines the terms and then offers practical suggestions for implementing them. He includes the competitor of each of these characteristics of love (e.g. busyness is the competitor of courtesy) and offers specific suggestions for cultivating these selfless acts.

Chapman rejects the common view that one falls into and out of love as though it were a disease alternately caught and overcome. He argues that anyone who claims to love must translate those words into concrete actions. As he writes, “Love is an attitude that leads to a change in behavior.” Specifically, love bears scant resemblance to popular conditions of romantic love that fades over time in the face of the demands of work, kids, relatives, and even due to high school reunions.

For Chapman, authentic love is not an ethereal feeling, but a concrete series of specific tasks and this book is about equipping the reader for these tasks.

As a joke, sometimes I steal the line from As Good as it Gets and say to Kadie (with appropriate Nicholson inflection) “You make me wanna be a better man!”

Chapman reminds me that wanting to do something is not the same thing as equipping me to do so. This work equips the reader for a life-transforming task. It is probably the best book on personal development I’ve read in the 20 years since I read since Scott Peck’s A Road Less Travelled.

In closing, I told Kadie about the book and she had noticed me trying to work on some of the traits he discusses. Stealing one of Chapman's questions from his section on marriage, I asked her “Kadie, how can I be a better husband to you?” Without missing a beat she replied “Keep reading books like that one.”

High praise indeed!

Now for a little contest. I also received two extra copies of this book! The first two readers to email me the languages of love (all five) from Capman's previous book will get a free copy of Love as a Way of Life.

If you sprinkle...

(I hope the reader (use of the singular is intentional) will forgive a PG-13 digression from the recent run on Pastor Search Committee information.)

The past several weeks, the bathroom that each of the three kids share has smelled. It’s smelled like a men’s locker room. Actually it’s smelled more like a men’s restroom. Specifically, it’s smelled of urine. With a large crack running down the side of the toilet,Kadie and I resigned ourselves to getting a plumber to come out and repair the crack before the raw smell drives the kids crazy.

With that background, Scooter came to me a few days ago and said “Dad, Squealer tinkled on the bathroom seat. You should talk to him about it.”

I sat there silently for a moment and digested this information. Then I somewhat sheepishly replied (with hands held out in supplication):

“Scooter, who among us can possibly cast the first stone at that transgression? I mean, to expect any male in general and a five year old boy in particular to carefully raise the seat every time he...” But she quickly interrupted.

“No, Dad, you don’t understand. He had the seat up! “

My mind turned slowly as I processed this new information. It did not compute, so I inquired further. “But Scooter, how could he urinate on the bathroom seat if it’s up?”

“Dad, he peed on the bottom of the upraised seat!!!”

We were both a little surprised that she used the term “pee”. She’s normally sensitive to the appropriateness of her language. In her defense, however, her brother pushed her over the edge in this instance.

A quick conversation with Squealer revealed the truth of his big sister’s outburst. He had been raising the lid of the toilet, then urinating in a slow circle around its underside, like a meticulous firefighter extinguishing a ring of fire from the circus.

After an extensive conversation, he’s resolved not to repeat the behavior.

Mealtime Interview

As a significant part of our process, the interview over a meal was a necessary evil. It’s natural I suppose, to get to know someone over a shared meal, but in most cases it was painfully formal. In fact, with every candidate except the one we selected, the meeting felt more like an interview than a meal. We would talk with the candidate about the recently observed service and then ask a variety of questions that would tell us about the candidate.

We decided against scripting out questions in advance. We felt that it would be too artificial to try to go through and select certain questions that each of us would ask. This meal was the first opportunity for anyone on the committee (outside of myself) to talk to the potential candidate.

A couple of thoughts:

• As I’ve mentioned before, we decided that every meal we would have a female member of the committee present. This decision invariably helped us afterwards when we discussed how the interview went.
  
• Candidates should always have questions for the committee. It indicates a lack of preparation at best, or a desire to accept any job opening that comes along at worse, when the candidate asks no questions. The candidate we eventually recommended to the church asked some very pointed and difficult questions, which was refreshing.
  
• One candidate had a detailed five step plan that God revealed to him that he was going to implement at Lakeview Baptist. I certainly endorse pastoral leadership and think that the pastor has the key leadership role in setting the vision for the church, but we were surprised that he had such a detailed view when he knew nothing about our church.
  
• We gained a lot of information simply by observing the candidate interact with his wife. We requested that (when possible) the pastor’s wife come to lunch with us. We weren’t so much interested in observing her (I am partial to the demands on the pastor’s wife) but we could more easily see how the candidate treated his wife. This was an area of critical importance to us. One candidate tensed up whenever his wife answered questions and he was clearly worried about what she might have to say. The candidate we eventually called was easy and relaxed as his wife asked us questions or answered questions of our own.
  
• We were also big fans of the waiter test. We watched closely to see how the candidate interacted with the wait staff at the restaurant. (Obviously, I have a soft spot for the wait staff!)
  
• The candidate we selected brought his kids (ages 5 and 2) to part of the meal. I would recommend against that, though in his case the kids were well behaved and didn’t detract from the atmosphere of the interview. But as a rule, I'd recommend getting a sitter (I know I did with MY kids).

Having his kids present certainly didn’t hurt his case when a random couple in the restaurant came up and complimented the candidate in front of us and said “What a fine family!” After the couple left we sat there in stunned silence. Then the candidate turned to us with a grin on his face and said “You have no idea how hard it was to plant that couple in this restaurant before we all got here…”

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"It's Not a Competition"

Longtime readers may recall that one of my favorite theologians is N. T. Wright. I mentioned hearing him address the annual SBL meeting in San Diego last November.

Oddly enough, he turned up a few nights ago on the Colbert Report. The thought of Steve Colbert interviewing Bishop N.T. Wright seems about as likely as Woody Allen interviewing Billy Graham!! But it made for a interesting conversation nonetheless. Although you do have to wade through a heavy layer of Colbertian snark, it’s still worth it. The topic is heaven and the New Heavens and the New Earth.

Enjoy!





(What?! You mean you didn’t know that Woody Allen DID interview Billy Graham?)

Checking References

We consulted the references for all of the candidates with whom we made contact. Most candidates included three references, but some did not. From those we secured at least three references. We then divided up the references and had the committee members contact them. At times, some of the committee members knew one of the references and would speak with them. But in most cases, these reference checks formed the first impression of the candidate by the individual committee members. In our case, they were extremely important.
In almost every instance, contacting the references proved to be the most valuable part of the search process.

It provided us much needed perspective on the situation of the pastoral candidate and was illuminating on various occasions. The reference could generally speak on subjects that the candidate was less inclined to speak upon. The references could address any trouble at the church, or trouble in home life that the candidate might not have shared. Conversely, they could point to accomplishments or some other type of acclaim that the candidate might possess but not feel free to share.

We asked each reference the following four questions:

1. In what capacity have you known the candidate? This gave us a context for the information that we would be receiving. For example, in one instance all of the references were friends or other pastors. None of the references had ever heard the candidate preach before.

2. How would you evaluate his giftedness as a pastor, and in your estimation, what are his strengths and weaknesses? As might be expected, most all of the references were positive and offered numerous examples of strengths. Weaknesses were more difficult to ferret out. Some simply said “I can think of no weaknesses” which means that the reference was either disingenuous (unlikely) or didn’t know the candidate particularly well (more likely). One reference said that the candidate’s only weakness was that he cheered for the college football team of a neighboring state!

But some weaknesses were helpful. One reference said of a candidate that he struggled with feeling despondent and depressed with some regularity. Another reference shared that the pastor’s son had been involved in some illegal activities.

3. Is there any reason we should not call this person to be our pastor? We went fishing with this question, thinking that perhaps some reference might mention a deep secret that would preclude a candidate from the office of pastor. We gained no secret knowledge. The answer in every case was “Nope.”

4. Could you please give us another name that we can discuss this candidate with? We decided to ask for a “one off” reference. This allowed us to speak with people who knew the candidate, but not be limited to references that the candidate alone had chosen. The idea was that this would permit us to speak with someone else who knows the candidate well, but is not necessarily of the candidate’s choosing. I recommend using this question as it put us in contact with someone who usually felt more free to discuss the candidate.

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Initial Contact

What we did after we received the resumes:


When we looked over the resumes, there were a few instances where we clearly knew that the person wouldn’t be a good fit at Lakeview. We set those resumes aside. In one case an individual was retired and in his seventies. His cover letter gave no rationale for why he was considering leaving retirement. In another case, a candidate shared a bit too much personal history (in spectacular detail) in his cover letter that led us to question his judgment. (TMI as Scooter would say).


In another instance, one of the committee members had very close knowledge of the candidate and, after sharing this knowledge with the committee, we rejected the candidate.


And we had a few letters that were clearly sent out to each and every church this individual found out about (one applicant sent the wrong church's name in the cover letter while another applied for a position we weren't search for: Director of Missions). But about 95% of the resumes we received we contacted.


Since we desired to standardize the process as much as possible, we made the decision that as Chairman of the Committee, I would contact each of the candidates for a brief phone interview. In the initial call, I would ask each candidate the following questions:

1. "Are you interested in our committee considering you for this position?" We asked this question (obviously) in order to gauge their interest. In several cases, where one of our church members had recommended them or where we received what turned out to be an older resume, their answer was a brief "Nope." In some cases they asked several questions about Lakeview before they answered. (We took a dim view of that response). But by and large, the answer was "Yes."

2. The second question I asked was "Tell me about yourself." (OK, technically not a question;)We had a couple of motives here. The first, and most obvious, was to learn a little bit more about the candidate. But we also left the question fairly open ended so that they could answer however they pleased. Most told their testimonies. Some answers were short, and some long. One thing we began to take note of was whether or not they mentioned their families. Some would answer for several minutes and shared a great deal of pride in their current location of ministry, but would only mention their family when prompted. Overall, our committee responded more favorably toward the candidate who clearly prioritized family over ministry.

3. Our third question was "Why do you feel that God may be moving you to another place of ministry at this time in your life?" This question was a (not so?) subtle way of trying to determine if there were any negative factors going on at their current place of ministry that might have been a factor in their decision to move on. We did have some negative things come up, but most of them were explained to our satisfaction by the candidate. It was always better for negative situations to be brought up by the candidate rather than for them to come up when we discussed the candidate with their references.

4. Our final question was "What does it mean to be Baptist?" Of our initial questions, this was the only one that touched on the issue of theology. We wanted to give them an opportunity to talk about what was important to them. In retrospect, this was probably the least helpful of the initial questions as almost every candidate gave some variation on the answers of Believer's Baptist and Inerrancy of the Bible.

Next: How we dealt with references...

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The Mechanics of the Search: Gathering Resumes

***Please note that we developed these processes over a few months. My assumption is that we relied on God for guidance through all of this. So understand that when I say something like “We did this and this” I am assuming that the readers will understand that we actively sought out God’s direction before we engaged in any particular task.***



We contacted the two large SBC seminaries in the deep south (SWBTS and NOBTS) as well as the various state conventions surrounding our area. We received by far the most resumes from our local association and received numerous names from church members as well. In a few cases, we received resumes directly from pastors. And lastly we personally solicited some from individuals known by the committee.


Most helpful were the resumes passed on to us by our associational office. I spent a fair amount of time with our Director of Missions and found him to be very helpful throughout this process. Whenever he sent me a resume, I could contact him and request additional information (off the record) and he never failed to give me additional context for the candidate.

We didn’t receive that many names from church members, just a handful. We repeatedly encouraged the church members to submit names, another attempt to keep them involved in the process. We contacted each of the suggested names and received resumes from maybe 1/3 of them.


We also made contact with several ministers in the area that the various committee members personally knew and thought would be a good fit at Lakeview. In most cases, they believed that God was calling them to remain in their current position of ministry. A variation on this practice led us to our new pastor. I contacted a mentor who works in our state office and he knew of a strong candidate that he recommended to us.

We had a few pastors send their resumes directly to us and generally took a dim view of that practice. Pastoral resume etiquette indicates that you get a friend, or D.O.M. to submit the resume on your behalf, along with a cover letter of support.

One of the grossest violations of common resume etiquette (in my opinion) was an application we received from a pastor after we had contacted him as a reference on another candidate!! While he spoke to us about another candidate, he asked us a few questions about our church and then later decided to submit his own resume. I disagreed with this practice, though not all on the committee agreed. Some on the committee saw no problem with this behavior.

But they were wrong.

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A Few Minutes Well Spent

Last night Scooter, Skeeter and I were watching an old movie that I recorded recently. It was the first time that they had ever seen Harvey, the movie starring Jimmy Stewart and a six foot rabbit. One of the best highlights of recent memory was spending about ten minutes working with Skeeter on her Jimmy Stewart impression.

Enjoy the clip

The Search Process as a Whole

I think the biggest surprise in the search process was how God used it to change me. The search process was (like any good road trip movie) far more about the journey than the destination. Our search accomplished a few things:

1. I suppose the most obvious is that we got a new pastor. Not to ruin the suspense but the search did come to completion.

2. We got to know one another as a committee very well. When we began meeting last July, our normal custom was to meet on Wednesday evenings after choir practice and Bible study starting at 7:30. We tried to be done by 10:00, but most of the time we went to 10:30 or even 11:00. Out of the nine committee members, I knew about three of them well. The others I really didn’t know at all. But we know each other very well now! During these hours together we spent a great deal of time learning about each other, sometimes intentionally (through ice breakers), but mostly unintentionally as we discussed various issues facing the church. My hope is that this close fellowship will strengthen the church in the months and years ahead.

3. As a committee we learned a lot about our church. I heard stories from older members of the committee that predated my arrival at Lakeview. Since our meetings were always in confidence, there was a freedom about sharing the frustrations and joys we had experienced individually as they related to choices and decisions that the church leadership had made on previous occasions.

4. Personally I had my faith stretched on several occasions. My faith (like the rest of me) has as tendency to get a bit flabby when underused. This year as a whole has been challenging, but particularly the last few weeks. As the search come to a conclusion, there were numerous moving parts that our committee had to deal with.

5. I feel like we were sitting on the front row watching God at work. Many things occurred that demonstrated to the committee that God was working through this challenging process.

In the next few posts, I will detail the mechanics of the search and share our experiences (and our screw-ups!) during the process.

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A Love That's Stronger Than our Fears (V)

The evening after my presentation I had a conversation with Matthew, a student in my night class. Matthew is an excellent student who has displayed an intense interest in various bible classes I’ve taught over the last few years including two Bible classes (Pentateuch and the Gospels) and one theology (the Problem of Evil).

And he is also gay.

He was president of the Gay/Straight group last year and attended my presentation earlier in the day. Because of our past relationship, I wanted his honest opinion.

Matthew sighed and said that he was disappointed to hear my views. “But, you might as well think homosexuality is sinful, everyone else does” he said with some exasperation. I pointed out to him that I think homosexual acts are sinful, not homosexuality itself. His shrug indicated that he saw my response as a distinction without a difference.

Matthew continued wearily: “You may not believe this Dr. Taran, but I’m a Christian. I don’t believe that God would condemn someone for the way He had made them.” I felt that my role was to listen, and not debate, so I said nothing.

“Remember my friend Nathan?” I nodded. A week before, Matthew told me privately that he was going to miss a few class periods because a good friend of his, Nathan, was dying of HIV. Matthew had sworn to Nathan years before, when he was first diagnosed, that he wouldn’t let Nathan die alone. So Matthew went up to the nursing home for a few days until Nathan died.

“Nathan grew up in a fundamentalist church. And when he came out of the closet in high school, some of the people in that church said some pretty hate filled things to him. But over the last few years of our friendship, I shared with Nathan that there were some good, loving Christians out in the world. Just because he had encountered some vicious people who claimed the name of Christ, doesn’t mean that Jesus was that way.”

“Dr. Taran, because of my witness to Nathan, he came to know the Lord. I firmly believed that he died a Christian.” I shared with Matthew that I certainly hoped that was the case and then we were quiet. "Well, it's getting late. I'll see you later." and Matthew left the classroom.

So where does that leave me? Essentially where I started, but with perhaps more understanding of the outlook of certain homosexuals. I still think that homosexual actions are sinful, but as I told the group, we are all sinners. A person practicing homosexual activity can be a Believer just as an adulterer, glutton or liar can.

But God calls each of us to change….and that includes me. And I believe I’ve changed somewhat through this process. The title of this series has been (in addition to being cribbed from a Derek Webb song about torture) a reminder that we are called to go and be among the sinners, even when it involves overcoming a fear of how a group might treat us. Even when sharing the gospel in hostile settings, “the love of Christ compels us.” That is an ideal to live up to, and one I'm pretty miserable at following.

(With school beginning again tomorrow, I anticipate more time to finish out the extended series on our Pastor Search Committee. We'll see!)

Tornado

Friends,

Kadie and I have been on vacation (and will be throughout this next week) so I've been away from internet access. I was stunned to find out that the tornadoes that hit Colorado this last week struck the area around Cornerstone Baptist Church in Windsor. Cornerstone's pastor is Dave Samples, an occasional commentator on this blog. Please keep him and Cornerstone Baptist in your prayers as they minister to a reeling community. I enclose a recent email he sent out:

Dear Friends,

The days have been moving very quickly as our church and our community digs out from the rubble left by the tornado. Words just can’t express the level of destruction that our community has survived. The fact that the largest amount of destruction happened within a few blocks of our church has given all of us at Cornerstone a great ministry of care.

Cleanup of the Cornerstone campus began Saturday morning at about 10:00 once we were given permission to return to the property. Access was limited and controlled by the National Guard but I believe that everyone who attempted to reach the church on Saturday morning was allowed in. The work went quickly with the Colorado Disaster Relief Team being the first on the scene. They did some clean up of the parking lot area including the removal of a light pole that had fallen in the middle of the parking lot. The Disaster Relief Team left our facility and made their first stop at the home of one of our neighbors who happen to be elderly. The older couple was attempting to clean the debris from their yard and they were extremely grateful to the have the help of the team. The Team has chainsaws and was able to take out some trees and moved a great deal of debris very quickly. As the Disaster Relief Team moved out…our guys and girls from Cornerstone moved in and spent the day cleaning and making temporary repairs to our property. We are thankful to Excel Energy who stopped by and turned on our electricity on Saturday afternoon. We are also grateful to the “CO CAT” Company who assisted us in boarding up and tarping the places where the roof was missing. They did a lot of work absolutely free of charge. Someone was set up by McDonald’s giving away free lumber which we used to board up windows. I don’t even know who that was but—we are thankful. As the church building was being repaired, others were moving out into the community helping with cleanup and tree removal. Several chaplains from our church as well as the disaster relief team were walking the community and meeting needs. It’s interesting that within the past year at least five of our members have undergone disaster relief training with our state convention. It’s amazing how God has prepared us for this event.

Our property is the center of the disaster relief and clean up effort. We have fire, police, medical, and a Salvation Army feeding unit all working from our church. This is giving our church great exposure in terms of meeting needs and reaching our community. It’s rare to see any news about the Windsor tornado without seeing a shot of our church building. Fox 31 carried a feature on our Sunday morning worship service this evening. Worship went well today with 249 worshippers. The testimonies were very moving in each service. God is truly doing a work in us and through us.

One of the needs that have been identified is for childcare while parents are cleaning and repairing. Liz Simper is working to put something together to meet this need. Contact her if you would like to help.

My apologies to those of you who have yet to get a return email or phone call. I have much to do in the way replying to communication. It’s amazing how much accumulates when you don’t have electricity.

Blessings upon you!

Pastor Dave

(Taran: Pray for the church and her pastor. Pray that God's grace will be channeled through their efforts. Look for updates at Dave's blog.)

A Love That's Stronger Than our Fears (IV)

Several questions were generated by my review:

Why are Southern Baptists in particular so anti-homosexual in their views?

Several students asked me about what I thought of the Bishops Spong and Robinson.

The faculty advisor of the group asked me why homosexuality is considered a worse sin than adultery. “Jesus teaches that divorce is equivalent to adultery and we have many people who attend church that are divorced. Why are homosexuals treated differently?”

Some questions about how homosexuality is treated in the Bible.

Providing an odd ending to the meeting was a young man, who had never before attended this group. (He rminded me of Elihu). He said “All of you are missing the key question in this discussion: What about Jesus? You have all missed this point!” The faculty advisor replied “Those are your questions, but not the ones we are discussing today.”

I then told him that this setting was not the proper venue for a theological discussion just as one would not go to an accounting club meeting and ask everyone to talk about the exclusivity of salvation in Christ. He then turned to (on?) me and said “You’ve been doing nothing but dancing with words throughout this meeting. You are dancing around the most important issue of all!”

I replied “I am greatly insulted that you say I’m doing nothing but dancing with words. I carefully chose the words I’ve used and I am offended that you would characterize my discussion as dancing.

Mostly because I told you earlier that I’m Southern Baptist and I do not dance.”

Tomorrow, a final post script on the discussion.

A Love That's Stronger Than our Fears (III)

(Sorry for the delay. I shouldn’t start a series during finals week and right as our pastor search nears its completion).

After my review of UnChristian (see here and here) I addressed the Gay/Straight group with some suggestions for how Homosexuals and Evangelicals could move forward:

First, both sides need to recognize that there is a wide range of response to homosexuals in the Christian community. At one extreme are those who both welcome and affirm homosexual behavior (certain mainline denominations, certain individual churches). At the other extreme are those churches who neither welcome, nor affirm (numerous fundamentalist churches who set aside the sin of homosexual acts as particularly heinous).

So there is not one set response of the church to these issues. A more helpful approach is one that welcomes all to worship and bible study, but does not affirm all expressions of sexuality. Indeed, I think that the response most closely aligning with Scripture is to welcome all homosexuals, as we welcome all adulturers, drunkards, gluttons, liars, ones who lust and ones who are consumed with pride. We welcome them all, but affirm none of these individual sins.

Our stance should be welcoming, but not affirming. (Completely cribbed from Stanley Grenz’s excellent work by that same name).

A second suggestion is that homosexuals and evangelicals can dialogue on these issues. But only if we offer one another honest dialogue. Platitudes merely mask over the genuine differences between these two groups. As I told them, “I need to be able to tell you unashamedly that homosexual actions are described as sinful by the Bible and are therefore immoral. And you need to be able to tell me just as honestly that you consider my perspective to be bigoted and also immoral.”

As Christians, we must lovingly and honestly share the full measure of the gospel with others.

A third suggestion is that homosexuals and Evangelicals need to avoid stereotyping one another. There is a great quote in UnChristian by a Christian who is talking to an angry homosexual. This man had been deeply wounded by past actions of the church. He talkes about the anti-homosexual hatred that flows from the mouths of some so-called Christians. Finally the Christian said “Let’s make a deal. You don’t assume that all evangelicals think like Pat Robertson and I won’t assume that all homosexuals are pedophiles.”

Stereotyping reduces people to caricatures and objectifies them. As soon as we stereotype people, they can become objects instead of creatures made in the image of God.

Lastly, we can work together in some areas of common ministry. The evangelical church, by and large, has done a miserable job of ministering to AIDS patients. We can work with those suffering from HIV. We can also work to end non-religious workplace discrimination against all people, including gays.

Note that on other issues (e.g. same sex marriage, advocating homosexuality in public schools) we agree to disagree and may even work against one another in certain instances.

5. Lastly I shared with them that people don’t go to hell because they are homosexuals. Everyone sins and that no one goes to hell because of what they do or who they are. People go to hell only because of what they do with Jesus.

Following these points, we had a discussion that led in some interesting directions. I’ll summarize it tomorrow.

A Love That's Stronger Than our Fears (II)

With the words of Bartolot ringing in my ears, I accepted the invitation and addressed the Gay/Straight group this last Tuesday. I started off with a brief review of the book, UnChristian. (For background on the book and a formal review, see Benjie here and here.) I started off by sharing with them that I normally don’t speak about my own personal faith on campus and briefly explained why. Several of the group (about 20 students and faculty) had taken my courses before and I asked them to confirm that I normally don’t speak of such things. I then identified myself as a Baptist and an evangelical (not in a political sense, but in the Bebbington sense).

UnChristian is not an earth-shattering work. It is a fairly straightforward book, including numerous anecdotes, that provides a context for how outsiders view the evangelical subculture. I shared with the group that there are six areas where Kinnemann takes us evangelicals to task. One of these views that Outsiders (nonChristians) have is that they believe that Christians are anti-homosexual. Kinnamann then produces evidence to support this viewpoint (directly quoted from UnChristian) :

1. Born-again Christians are more likely to disapprove of homosexuality than divorce. The vast majority of Christians say that homosexuality should not be considered a legitimate lifestyle and strongly reject church-sanctioned weddings for same-sex unions. However, a minority of born-again believers (39 percent) embrace Jesus's teaching that divorce is a sin except in cases of adultery (see Matt. 5:32). Even among evangelicals, just three out of five describe
divorce as a sin, well below their opposition to gay marriage.

2. Most born-again Christians have a hard time knowing how they
should respond to the lifestyles of homosexuals as well as how to respond to the political efforts of gay and lesbian activists. For instance, many believers advocate legal restrictions on homosexual behavior. A majority of born-again Christians, including more than four out of five evangelicals, say that homosexual relations between two consenting adults should be illegal.'

3. Millions of Americans, including two out of every five churchgoers, say that school boards ought to have the right to fire teachers who are known homosexuals. Of course the issues are complicated, but Christians are fueling the idea that gays and lesbians should not be allowed to work in public schools.

4. Many Christians continue to be very skeptical about donating to HIV/AIDS causes, even overseas, despite Christians' generosity in many other arenas. In one poll we found that just 14 percent of born-again Christians say they would be highly motivated to help HIV/AIDS orphans overseas. In another study we discovered that two out of every five born-again Christians, including the same proportion of evangelicals, admitted they have more sympathy for people who have cancer than they do for people with HIV/AIDS. In probing people’s attitudes, we find this perspective typically springs from the idea that the disease is deserved. They believe God is punishing these people—or that their decisions and lifestyle deserve this outcome.

As you will see, our criticism of gays and lesbians is not only ineffective, but also it repels many 16 to 30 year olds. As one survey respondent put it, "I cannot imagine Jesus actually treating gays and lesbians like Christians do today." (end quote)

I then offered a few criticisms of the book. First, I think Kinnaman needs to address the fact that many in the evangelical church are uninterested in being popular. He understands that, but I think he could’ve headed off that particular criticism by addressing it in the book. UnChristian isn’t trying to make the case that the church should be concerned about its popularity, but I am concerned that some will dismiss its criticisms by simply calling it Emergent and focused only on worldly popularity.

Second, although the book is addressed to Christians, he doesn’t illustrate what we can do to directly engage these perceptions. I then turned to my own suggestions for how Evangelicals and Homosexuals could talk to one another.

A Love That's Stronger Than our Fears (I)

**Note, I'm tired of thinking about PSC stuff right now, so the next few posts will cover an experience I had this week***

Last year I was asked to speak at a Gay and Lesbian support group on campus. The faculty advisor is an agnostic, but understands the importance of faith in the lives of people (particularly in our section of the South). The topic she asked me to address was what the Bible teaches about homosexual acts After much prayer and no small degree of anguish I accepted, knowing that my views would run counter to those of the members of the group as well as the advisor. But the students were respectful and though some (obviously) challenged my readings of the texts, the conversation was quite courteous.

A couple of months ago she asked me to come back and give a book review of a recent Barna book called UnChristian (a book that Benjie is also currently working through). This book presents research showing what outsiders (nonbelievers) think of evangelical Christianity. One chapter of the book shows that outsiders perceive Christians as being fundamentally anti-homosexual. Because of this perspective, the faculty advisor asked me to come by and review the work.

With everything else on my plate, I was less that receptive to going back. Last year’s presentation required a lot of preparation and mental energy that I wasn’t sure I would have. Some friends at church advised against going telling me “It is a set up, a trap!” But after much prayer and thinking about how to respond, it was my brother Bartolo who crystallized it for me. He asked me a simple question “Would Jesus go to their meeting?”

Without hesitation I knew the answer, he would. And if he would, then I obviously would need to do so.

I hate it when Bartolo gives me sound advice...(at least it doesn't happen too often ;)

Pastor Search Committee Update

Recent busy times at Lakeview have had a direct correlation with my lack of blogging lately. Things have heated up on the pastor search front. In the last few weeks we have visited a candidate’s home church, invited him up for an intense theological interview, and then (last night) voted as a committee to recommend him to the church this coming Sunday.

We now are moving on to the next phase of the search: negotiating a salary, presenting a compensation package to the church, and explaining to the church why we are recommending a pastor who is a good thirty years younger than his predecessor.

I’ll blog on each of these items in the coming days.

Exciting times...

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